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ATIS’ Network Reliability Steering Committee Releases 2002 Annual Report

Report Reviews Health of U.S. Telecom Network Performance and Concludes Network Outages Significantly Down in 2002

October 6, 2003, Washington, D.C. – ATIS is pleased to announce that its Network Reliability Steering Committee (NRSC) has released its 2002 Annual Report. The Report reviews the health of U.S. telecommunications network performance based on major outage reports made by service providers for the year 2002, as well as trends observed over the last ten years of network outage reporting to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Among its major findings, the NRSC found that network outage frequency has been decreasing by 16 percent annually over the last three years, including 2002, which experienced the lowest number of outages of any year over the last ten years. While the NRSC also found that the duration of outages in 2002 were longer than average, its overall outage index, a measure of the severity of outages, dropped to its lowest annual level to date.

In addition to describing overall network performance, the report also describes performance by network categories – facility, switch, common channel signaling, etc.– and provides root cause analysis within each category.

The NRSC concludes that implementing industry Best Practices is invaluable in preventing and mitigating outages and recommends that service providers, network operators and equipment suppliers continuously review and apply Best Practices as appropriate.

During 2002, members and participants in the NRSC included: AT&T, BellSouth, Consumer Representative, CTIA, FCC, Lucent Technologies, National Communications System (NCS), Nortel Networks, Qwest Communications, SBC, Sprint, Tellabs, Telcordia Technologies, Union Pacific Railroad and Verizon.

The NRSC 2002 Annual Report is available for download via the ATIS web site at:
http://www.atis.org/pub/nrsc/2002rpt.pdf.

ATIS’ NRSC was formed to monitor network reliability utilizing the information contained in major outage reports filed with the FCC. The Committee's mission is to analyze the industry's reporting of network outages to identify trends, make recommendations aimed at improving network reliability, and make the results publicly available, in order to help ensure a continued high level of network reliability.

About ATIS

ATIS is a technical planning and standards development organization that is committed to rapidly developing and promoting technical and operations standards for the communications and related information technologies industry worldwide using a pragmatic, flexible and open approach. Over 1,400 participants from more than 400 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 16 industry committees, and its Incubator Solutions Program. www.atis.org

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